LOS ANGELES
The Justice Department announced Friday that a federal grand jury has indicted Los Angeles attorney Milton C. Grimes for evading individual income tax payments and willful failure to pay taxes.
The indictment filed Thursday afternoon charges Grimes with one count of attempted tax evasion and four counts of willful failure to pay taxes.
According to the indictment, Grimes owed the IRS more than $1.7 million in taxes for tax years 2010 and 2014. The IRS tried to collect the unpaid taxes from Grimes by, among other things, levying his personal bank accounts.
From 2014 through 2020, Grimes allegedly worked to thwart the tax levies by keeping his bank account balances low in response to IRS collection efforts.
Grimes deposited the money he earned from representing clients into his law firm’s business bank accounts. Then he routinely purchased cashier’s checks and withdrew cash from those business bank accounts, the indictment states.
Grimes allegedly avoided IRS collection efforts by not depositing income earned into his accounts. With this scheme, Grimes allegedly withdrew approximately $16 million in funds from the business accounts in cashier’s checks during those years rather than paying the amount owed to the IRS, the indictment state.
Grimes also allegedly filed individual income tax returns for tax years 2018 through 2021, reporting that he owed approximately $700,000 in taxes. Grimes allegedly did not, and has not, paid the taxes that he self-reported he owes.
Grimes is alleged to have caused a tax loss of approximately $2.4 million to the IRS. He is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
If convicted of the charges, Grimes is facing up to six years in prison.
IRS Criminal Investigation is investigating this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Valerie L. Makarewicz of the Major Frauds Section and Trial Attorney Sara A. Henderson of the Justice Department’s Tax Division are prosecuting the case.